Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Wong says, 'oh, right' as if I am saying some terrible thing. Let me put it to you this way. It is actually up to the individual voter to determine whether they issue a preference and how many preferences they issue—they will be provided with instruction to vote at least 1 to 6 above the line—but we cannot and we should not force voters to preference every single party putting themselves forward in the Senate. If Senator Edwards does not want to vote for the Sex Party in South Australia, he should not have to. And if Senator Edwards wants to vote 1 Liberal, as I am sure he will; 2 National, as I am sure he will; 3—I don't know, Family First, as he might; and if he wants to vote for other parties that coincide with his views, maybe not as much as the Liberal Party but still relatively closely aligned to his views, then of course he should be entitled to do that, and he will be entitled to do that under our legislation. But he should not be forced to express a preference and to keep going down the line expressing a preference for parties whose views he quite frankly objects to.

Let me put it this way: it is preferable for a vote to exhaust because the voter has made an active choice and an active decision not to preference beyond a certain number of parties than to have the situation under the current system where a person's vote might ultimately end up with a party they never intended to vote for and that they do not support and that they would not want to represent them here in the Senate. So if you have got two alternatives, the opportunity for a voter to make a democratic choice that they are entitled to make—who they vote for at No. 1, who they preference, how many parties they want to preference when voting above the line, how many parties not to preference when voting above the line—that is an entirely legitimate, democratic choice for an Australian voter to make at an election, and it is 100 per cent preferable to have a vote exhaust in that circumstance than to have that vote go to a political party that the voter never, ever intended to support but with whom their vote might ultimately end up because of non-transparent group voting ticket arrangements. That is the reason we are putting forward our proposal that is in front of the Senate now, and that is why we believe it is significantly superior to what is currently in place.

In relation to the campaign, we agree with Senator Wong and with those who say there need to adequate education campaigns, there needs to be adequate information to voters across Australia on how they are now going to be able to direct their preferences according to their wishes instead of having their preferences traded away by political party backroom operators, by political party backroom preferences manipulators. We do need to explain to people that they now will have the power to determine not only where their No. 1 vote above the line goes in the Senate but also where their subsequent preferences go in voting above the line in the Senate. The judgements on how that is done and when that is done in practice is entirely a matter for the independent statutory agency, which is the Australian Electoral Commission. I am not going to micromanage the way the Australian Electoral Commission deploys its considerable expertise in this area. What we have said is that they will be adequately resourced. The Electoral Commission has said to us that they need three months between passage of the legislation and implementation of the legislation at an election. That is advice that the government has taken on board; that is advice that the government will be acting on. But beyond that, if Senator Wong, as part of the strategy to drag this debate out for as long as we can, is going to go into all sorts of micromanagement issues—

Opposition senators interjecting—

I doubt that Senator Wong, when she was the minister for finance with responsibility as part of her broader portfolio for electoral policy matters, I would be very surprised if Senator Wong got herself involved in the specific conduct of Electoral Commission campaigns in the lead-up to an election. I would be very surprised.